1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of automatically capturing images.
Portions of the disclosure of this patent document contain material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
2. Background Art
It can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience for a person to look at photographs or other media records of places visited or trips taken. However, it can also be a frustrating experience to acquire, maintain transport, and use all of the equipment necessary to obtain the photographs. In addition, the taking of the photographs themselves is an interruption of the travel experience itself. Some of the problems associated with creating a media record of events can be seen in an example of visiting a theme park.
Theme park guests often enjoy recording their experience with photographs, videos, or other media records. But there are a number of problems associated with making such records. First of all is the burden of carrying cameras or other media recording equipment during the visit. To make sure the cameras are available whenever an appropriate opportunity arises, the theme park guest must carry the camera the entire time. Even with straps or bags, it is inconvenient to always have the camera at hand. Smaller cameras may be easier to carry but fail to provide adequate pictures.
Another problem is that the guest may not have the opportunity to appear in their own pictures. If the guest is alone, or even with a group, the person taking the picture can""t easily appear in the picture (absent using a timer and leaving the camera unprotected). An image record without the guest in the images is not the best type of record. It may be possible to ask strangers to take pictures. However, such strangers may not be good photographers, may not know how to optimize the pictures, and worse, may actually run off with expensive equipment.
Even when a guest is willing to put up with the inconvenience of carrying their own media recording equipment, the resulting images rarely turn out the way the guests intend. Amateur photographers produce amateur images. The resulting images may lack the style and polish of professionally taken images, or images taken with higher quality equipment. Further, some of the most desirable pictures may be impossible for a guest to obtain. On certain attractions, for example, the guest may not be able to have a photograph taken while the guest is on the attraction. When the guest is on a roller coaster, for example, it is not practical for another rider to take pictures during the roller coaster ride.
There have been some attempts to provide solutions to the task of image capture at theme parks. On some attractions a theme park maintained camera takes pictures of all participants at one or more locations on the attraction. After exiting the attraction, a guest searches for their picture from a plurality of displayed images and determines whether to purchase a hard copy or not. A disadvantage of this system is that it is limited in scope, being only in place in a certain number of attractions. Another disadvantage is that the guest must elect to obtain the pictures at each attraction and so is often left carrying a number of images with them during the remainder of their visit at the theme park. As some attractions often involve water, the potential for damaging such images creates further problems.
The present invention provides an automatic picture taking system at a theme park. The system is mostly passive, with guests photographed automatically from a plurality of cameras distributed throughout the theme park. When a picture is taken, the camera broadcasts a code signal that is associated with that picture or image. A code receiver carried or worn by the guest receives the code and stores it in a memory associated with the receiver. Since the code broadcast area is suitably arranged to match the area being photographed by a particular camera, then any guest that receives the code must have been in the picture when it was taken. At any time, a guest may elect to review the pictures taken so far of the guest by visiting a location for that purpose. When the pictures are taken digitally, for example, the pictures can be provided by a central server to any of a number of locations. The guest may elect to purchase some or all of the pictures that include the guest. In one embodiment, the images are photographs, while in others the images may be videos or a combination of photographs and videos.
The cameras can be either hidden or conspicuous so as to allow candid or posed shots. In the latter case, obvious mechanisms can be used to indicate precisely when the picture is being taken (e.g. a countdown timer, a flash, etc.). It is possible to arrange the camera such that the user actively triggers the taking of the picture. It is also possible to use cameras carried by photographers roaming throughout the park. The roving photographers have a camera that also associates a captured image with a code number and transmits that code number when the image is taken. Those guests with code receivers in the field of the camera will receive the code number even if they are not aware that they are in a picture. This allows the roving photographer to obtain candid and posed pictures. The codes and images could be wirelessly transmitted to a server or could be manually downloaded periodically by the roving photographer.
The present invention utilizes an infrared identification scheme to associate a guest with a particular image. The camera outputs a serial number associated with the particular image taken and transmits that serial number via infrared. Only the guests having code receivers in the area of the transmitted infrared signal receive the associated serial number. Later, the guest can submit the code receiver for retrieval of the serial numbers of all images taken of that guest that day. The images can then be collected and offered to the guest in some presentation format.
The images of the guest can be provided in hard copy format or in digital form. In addition to recording picture serial numbers, the wearable guest devices can also record other location data from additional infrared data transmitters located throughout the park. This allows the creation of detailed maps that document the guest""s journey through the park that day. For guests who are traveling as a group, the data from multiple devices can be merged to created a single, coherent record of the group""s visit. In another embodiment, the photo album can be delivered in the form of a personal web site on the Internet.
Although the system has been described in terms of still images, it can also be used with any other form of electronic sensing. For example, audio, video, temperature readings, etc. can be collected and indexed via the same sort of code signal. This will allow for full multimedia record of the visit.